


Not Asking for a Storm

by delires



Series: Bite the Lightning [2]
Category: Digimon - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Underage Drinking, Underage Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:48:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27146173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/delires/pseuds/delires
Summary: Things between them have always been complicated. Yamato-centric prequel to Bite the Lightning.
Relationships: Ishida Yamato | Matt Ishida/Original Character(s), Ishida Yamato | Matt Ishida/Yagami Taichi | Tai Kamiya
Series: Bite the Lightning [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1981516
Comments: 19
Kudos: 39





	Not Asking for a Storm

**Author's Note:**

> Soooo a couple of people hinted in the comments for [_Bite the Lightning_](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14945348/chapters/34628858) that they’d be interested to read something in that verse from Yamato’s perspective. So I wrote this as a little prequel to that story. 
> 
> It’s probably not essential that you read BTL first, but this will most likely just seem a bit vague and open-ended if you don’t. If that doesn't bother you, have at it!
> 
> Also, I know that basically nobody is in this fandom and only about three people care, but I still love these two too much to care. DOING IT FOR ME, YAY. <3

Oh the bitter winds are coming in

And I'm already missing the summer

Stockholm's cold but I've been told

I was born to endure this kind of weather 

_Emmylou, First Aid Kit_

  
  


_January_

It’s cold. When Yamato steps out of his apartment, the temperature drop hits him immediately. Almost ten degrees down from the day before. 

Although he’s already late, he can’t resist pausing to step close to the railings of the walkway and look out across the city. It’s unusually quiet, even for a Sunday morning. Plumes of pretty steam rise from buildings – central heating systems and hot water tanks working on overdrive to keep the apartments cosy. 

It’s quite a scene. Still and untouched. The air on the walkway feels brittle and the railings are laced with frost. Yamato’s fingers leave imprints wherever he presses them, like marks at a crime scene. 

He both hates and loves the cold. Hates it because of the way it stings; loves it because it feels like it belongs to him somehow. The cold is Yamato’s bag. Heat doesn’t suit him. Summer’s more Taichi’s vibe. 

Taichi. Still late. 

Reluctantly, craving a cigarette, Yamato turns from the sleepy view and heads for the elevator, his boots heavy on his feet. 

Breakfast. On a Sunday. When half of Tokyo is still in bed. 

Yamato doesn’t know why he still accepts so many of Taichi’s nonsense ideas without question. He’s a chump for saying ‘yes’ to this, when the answer to whatever Taichi asks for should always be ‘no’. 

But there’s something about the way Tai suggests things. He’s got this way of making it feel like an arrangement they have already agreed upon, like Yamato had any part in deciding. 

Somehow, Taichi makes it hard not to follow where he leads, even after all this time. 

The café they have agreed to meet at is not one of their usual haunts. It’s in a weird place, tucked away down backstreets that Yamato doesn’t know. He has to navigate his way there using the map on his phone, squinting up at the names on buildings until he finally finds the place. Glass-fronted and glowing, the windows slightly steamed against the frosty air. 

Inside, the cafe is not what Taichi would usually go for either. It’s not loud, for a start. There’s indie music playing over the sound system and the rest of the clientele almost look, dare Yamato say it, cool. Not something that Taichi knows much about. 

Quietly approving, he stands in the entranceway, uncoiling his scarf with numb fingers as he scans the faces at the tables. He is just wondering if he’s first to arrive, when his phone chirps in his hand and he looks down to see a message alert from Taichi. 

_Behind you :)_

The table’s nestled off to one side, beside a bookcase trailing with creeper plants and plump little bags of expensive coffee. Taichi gets up as Yamato comes over and they hug to say hello, something they don’t normally bother with when other people they know are around. One on one, it feels like the natural thing to do. 

“Hey,” Yamato says. 

“Damn, you’re freezing,” is Taichi’s reply. “Does your skin absorb cold like a reptile, or what?” 

Yamato responds by touching his icy fingers to the side of Taichi’s neck and laughing when he yelps and jerks back away from him. 

“You’re the one who wanted to meet in the middle of nowhere. I had to walk like fifteen minutes from the train,” Yamato complains. 

“It’s the middle of the city. Not out in the sticks. You’re just not hardy enough,” Taichi says, as they sit down.

Yamato crosses one leg over the other and Taichi’s gazes follows the motion, strangely focused on it. “I like your boots,” he says, when he realises that Yamato is watching him watch. 

“Oh.” Yamato looks down at them – big, dark things that somehow seem to make his legs longer. He likes the way they look on him. “Yeah. New,” he says. 

“They look like weapons,” Taichi says, with a grin, and Yamato feels himself smile back. 

“I guess I could probably do some damage.” 

“Break a shin or two,” Taichi agrees. 

“You better watch out. Don’t cross me.” 

“Please. I know better than to cross you.”

Taichi looks like he is about to add to that, but he’s interrupted by a waitress appearing at his elbow. 

There is already a steaming mug of something sitting in front of Taichi, so Yamato looks up at her and says “Tea, please,” and “Thank you,” accepting the breakfast menu that she hands to him, while giving him that look that girls so often do. He returns her smile, politely flirtatious in return, and then collapses wearily backwards into his seat once she has walked away. 

“It’s hard, huh?” Taichi says, watching him again with that unusual level of focus. 

“What is?” 

“Everybody always wanting to fuck you all the time.” Taichi’s voice is teasing, but it still seems too early in the day to be throwing ‘fucks’ around in a nice place like this. The incongruity makes Yamato laugh. 

“What would you know about that?” he says, teasing too. He’s expecting Taichi to come back at him, keep their easy banter going. But instead, Taichi looks abruptly down at his menu. 

“You want to eat?” he says, suddenly serious. 

Yamato shrugs off the change of tone, chalking it up to hunger. Taichi can be quicksilver with his moods like that. “What we’re here for, right?” he agrees. 

“I might get eggs,” Taichi announces. 

Yamato studies the menu too. “Maybe I’ll have granola.” 

“Seriously? What, are you watching your weight? Get proper food,” Taichi says, a little sharp. 

Yamato pauses. Something is off here. The tone of this meeting isn’t quite right. Too many inconsistencies. The timing. The place. The flitting back and forth between amicable and challenging in the way Taichi’s speaking to him. What’s up with it all? 

Slowly, Yamato lays his menu back down again and studies the way that Taichi’s avoiding looking at him right now. On closer inspection, he doesn’t look like himself. There are shadows under his eyes, like he hasn’t slept well, and the heel of one of his sneakers is quivering up and down, a nervous ripple of movement, running all the way up from toes to thigh. 

“What’s the matter?” Yamato says. 

“Huh?” Taichi looks up at him in surprise. 

Yamato just raises his eyebrows, expectant. _Come on, then._ But Taichi shakes his head, trying to put him off with a smile. “Nothing,” he says. 

He’s not fooling anyone, though. Yamato gives him a few more seconds to change his answer. And when he doesn’t, he turns and gathers up his scarf and coat from the back of his chair. 

“Ok,” he says, with a theatrical shrug, winding the scarf back around his neck. 

“Woah, where you going?” Taichi says, getting to his feet, just as the waitress arrives with Yamato’s tea, looking confused. 

Yamato ignores her. He starts to pull his coat on. “What are we here for, then? I know it’s not breakfast. If it’s nothing, then I might as well go.” 

He is being deliberately irritating, so it’s no surprise that Taichi looks irritated with him – he hates to get rumbled, most of all by Yamato – and then gets stern in response. 

“Sit down,” he orders, leaning over the table to catch Yamato by the sleeve and tug at him insistently. “I’ll tell you.” 

Yamato does what he’s told. He twists out of the coat he is half-wearing and acknowledges the waitress finally, smiling up at her as he lowers himself back into his seat. He can feel Taichi scowling at him from across the table, but he ignores that, giving his friend a moment to cool off. 

“Sorry,” he tells her, accepting the tea, and then adds, “We’ll both have eggs florentine,” before she can ask, buying them some time to talk through whatever shit Taichi’s got going on. 

“You’re such an asshole, you know that?” Taichi tells him, once the waitress has left them. 

“And you’re a terrible liar. What’s the deal here? You’re being psycho. Tell me what’s wrong. You think I can’t tell?” 

Taichi draws in a long breath. The sound of his inhale makes Yamato itch to smoke. 

“God damn it. Ok,” he says. “I have something I need to talk to you about.” 

“I can see that.” 

“Look. I don’t know how to make this not awkward,” Taichi says, hands fidgeting. “So I’m just going to do it straight.” 

“Alright.” 

Yamato feels a flutter of nerves, in answer to the unfamiliar nervousness he can feel strobing off of Tai. 

Like he can sense exactly what Yamato’s thinking, Taichi says: “This is dumb, but I’m kind of scared.” 

It’s unsettling, seeing him like this. Destabilising. Yamato can’t imagine what in the real world could possibly be so terrifying that it would reduce the almighty Yagami Taichi to a hand-wringing, leg-jiggling nervous wreck over a casual breakfast. 

“Shut up. You don’t get scared,” Yamato says, lightly teasing. 

“Of course I do,” Taichi says, absolutely not playing along. 

Yamato sighs. “You know, this isn’t very straight so far,” he tries. 

“Well,” Taichi lets out a little huff of a laugh at that. Shakes his head. “Funny you should say that, Yama. Because, turns out, neither am I.” 

“What?” 

“I’m gay.” 

Yamato laughs. Then, realising that Taichi isn’t joking, he stops smiling. 

“You’re serious.” 

“Totally.” 

There’s a pause, while Yamato processes that. It’s a surprise, sure. But somehow the level of tension between them still doesn’t quite seem to add up. 

“Ok. Um. Well, that’s cool. You know I wouldn’t be—” 

Taichi interrupts by raising a hand, a gesture for Yamato to stop talking, which he does. 

“There’s more.” 

Yamato nods, feeling a wave of iciness sweep through his body, a chill that rises from the ground up. Suddenly, he knows exactly what Taichi is about to do. And now he can’t breathe because of it. 

“I like you,” Taichi says, sure enough. He’s speaking head-on, gaze locked with Yamato’s. All of that intensity, all of that strength, pinpoint-focused right at him. It’s blinding. Painful. 

“Uh huh,” Yamato manages to say. 

“I don’t expect you to tell me you feel the same. I don’t expect you to say anything at all. I just had to get this off my chest.” 

There’s a clatter from the direction of the counter at the back of the café – a tray being dropped. Yamato is startled by the noise. 

“So you’re going to dump it on my chest instead?” 

“No,” Taichi says. “We’ll share it.” 

There’s a feeling of panic that seems to be building in the air. Yamato glances around the warmly-lit café, which now feels hot and claustrophobic, way too crowded. 

“Why are you doing this here?” 

“I wanted you to not feel threatened. Or trapped. Or all of those things that you get.” 

“Is doing it where everyone can see better?” 

“Hey. Shh,” Taichi soothes, reaching across the table, but stopping short of touching Yamato. His palm just rests there against the wood. “Who’s looking? We’re fine. You’re fine. Please don’t freak out.” 

“I’m not.” 

“You are.” 

Yamato reins it in. Tries to soothe his anxiety. He takes a deep breath and focuses on how calm Taichi looks now. Rock-solid again, without this secret gnawing away at him. Slowly, Yamato gets his emotions back under control. 

“Well. I’ll stop.” 

“Thank you.” There’s a pause and then Taichi says, “Drink your tea.” 

Yamato picks up his mug. 

“I’m sorry. I just needed you to know,” Taichi says, wrapping his hands around his own drink. “Honestly, it’s been hurting me not telling you.” 

“I don’t want you to hurt,” Yamato says. 

“I know,” Taichi reassures him. “We can be cool with this. You know? We can still be us.” 

“Right.” 

“You can still flirt with the waitress in front of me,” Taichi adds, with a shrug and a casual smile, back to normal. “I promise not to break down about it.” 

Yamato is surprised to find himself laughing. Whatever dark void just momentarily split open between them is already easing closed. 

“I don’t want to flirt with the waitress. It’s not my fault people can’t stop hitting on me,” he says. “And now I have to add you to that list? I mean, come on. Way to be generic.” 

“Right? Someone’s got a crush on Ishida Yamato,” Taichi grins. “What else is new?” 

As if on cue, that’s when the waitress appears, holding a tray laden with plates and cutlery. 

* 

So they eat breakfast together. It doesn’t feel weird. They are at ease around each other and they’ve faced far worse. They talk about how Taichi will make the big reveal to the others (not the part about Yamato, of course, that just goes unsaid) and then what they both have going on at school this week. They gossip about Mimi hooking up with Yamato’s bandmate at some Christmas party that neither of them went to. They make plans to see a movie on Friday. 

Afterwards, they split the check and then step out together, into the frosty air. Only then does Taichi turn to look at Yamato, serious again. 

“We are cool, right? This is cool.” 

“Of course,” Yamato says. To prove that point, he steps forwards and puts his arms around Taichi, just like he normally would, closing his eyes in relief when he feels his friend echo the gesture. Nothing out of the ordinary here. The void is gone. Not even a scar. 

When they separate, Taichi doesn’t let the contact go completely, keeping one arm draped loosely over Yamato’s shoulders. There’s an easy possessiveness to it that Yamato kind of likes. Not that he would interrogate that feeling too closely. 

“You got somewhere to be? Or do you want to hang out?” Taichi asks. 

Yamato shrugs with one shoulder, lopsided under the weight of Taichi’s arm. He is a whisper taller, so Taichi’s having to stretch. 

“I’m free,” he says. 

_March_

Of course, it isn’t really that simple. Yamato kids himself for a while. But slowly, as the weeks trickle by, control of the situation begins to slip through his fingers. 

The problem is that Taichi is open about everything. And so people naturally ask questions. Make comments. Of course they fucking do. It’s high school. 

Yamato’s tough enough to take it. But it gets old. It gets boring, the same way that being treated like a foreigner in his hometown does. He gets sick of correcting people. Sick of standing up for himself. Sick of having to tell some asshole that he most certainly is not “Taichi’s blonde piece of ass” and that if they say that again then he’ll make them fucking sorry.

“Do I need to beat some dude up?” Taichi asks him, as they stroll slowly home from school that day. 

“No,” Yamato says. “I can handle that part myself. But maybe you could, like, hurry up and find a boyfriend already? So that people would get off my case for a hot minute. That would be super helpful,” he jokes.

“Sure thing,” Taichi says, smiling, nudging Yamato with an elbow. “Anything for you.” 

And this is the other problem. The bigger problem. 

Things aren’t weird between them. They aren’t. They are the same. 

But it’s as if Taichi’s confession has brought things that were already there in their dynamic into sharper focus. And now that Yamato can see it all clearly, he realises that there were signs further back than he really feels comfortable with. Things that Taichi said. Touches that maybe meant more than he’d thought.

They still flirt with each other. They always kind of have. It’s part of what they do. Only before it wasn’t really flirting, because that’s not what this was all about. 

Now, though...

Yamato sometimes finds himself freezing up when Taichi sends some cheeky remark his way, one that he would usually bat right back to him in an instant. Would this be leading Taichi on? he finds himself fretting. Would that be crossing some invisible line? 

And despite Taichi’s promises that “Everything’s cool, bro” there are still these moments when Yamato is distracted and then he will turn, or look up, and catch Taichi staring at him in a way that makes his pulse race.

Yamato has always attracted attention, since he was way too young to even know what to do with it. He’s used to being looked at like that by other people. 

But not by Taichi. 

It all makes their friendship feel somehow less safe to him; less of a refuge from everything else. And without really meaning to, without even thinking about it, Yamato slowly starts to withdraw. Their messages get less frequent. They hang out less often. 

Yamato throws himself into fooling around with other people, people he can drop in an instant. He’s not sure if Taichi is doing the same. If he is then he doesn’t talk to Yamato about it. 

The closest they get to that discussion is on a disastrous class trip to Nara.

They’re staying in a kind of summer camp set up, with the other kids in their grade. Yamato finds it sweetly nostalgic. Pine trees and the smell of earth and stars as far as the eye can see. 

Of course, the difference is that only Sora and Taichi are there from their group — the others are too old or too young — and they aren’t little kids anymore. Summer camp isn’t what it used to be.

One night, Taichi gets himself blind drunk on whiskey that some guys from his soccer team have smuggled in, while Yamato is busy finally hooking up with the new Canadian exchange student, Chloe, in one of the girls’ deserted dorm rooms.

She smells like fresh sweat and floral body spray and keeps all of her jewellery on as they fuck. 

Afterwards, she scrapes her long, ash-coloured hair back into a messy ponytail and smirks at him as if to say “nice work to the both of us, partner.”

She’ll only be in the country for another few weeks, which is kind of a shame because since the very first time he spoke to her, when they were partnered together for an exercise in math class, Yamato has felt that they’re kindred spirits, of a sort. He’s never met a girl so cool that it makes him feel like the square one. 

And he’s never met anyone else bisexual before.

“I told my girlfriend about you,” Chloe tells him, as she pulls her T-shirt down over her bare breasts.

Yamato pauses in lacing up his shoes and turns to look at her over his shoulder. “Won’t she be mad?”

“We had an agreement. Anything that happens while I’m here doesn’t count. She’s probably doing the same.” Chloe reaches past Yamato to pick up her bra from the floor, and then shoves it into the pocket of her shorts, taking the time to tuck in the straps. “We both feel the same about commitment,” she adds.

“Sounds ideal,” Yamato says, returning to his laces.

“Aww, you could have the same set up,” she says, squeezing one of his shoulders from behind in a brisk caress, before sliding off the bed and going to stamp her feet into her sneakers. “How about with that guy you like from the soccer team?”

“That isn’t a thing,” Yamato says, once again. “He’s my friend.”

“Sure it’s not,” Chloe says, raising her eyebrows to show she doesn’t believe him. “Now, get out of here before the other girls start coming back.”

*

It’s as Yamato is heading back through the darkness, to rejoin the rest of the class, that he comes across Sora, struggling to pick Taichi up from the ground.

His initial concern melts away into annoyance once he realises just how drunk their friend has managed to get.

“I’m trying to put him to bed,” Sora says, helplessly, as they heave Taichi up between them. “I’ve never seen him like this. He’s puked twice already.”

They manage to wrestle Taichi’s dead weight into the dorm that he and Yamato are staying in, pull off his shoes and sit him down on the edge of his bunk. He perches there woozily, while Yamato crouches in front of him, and Sora goes off in search of water. 

“Hey,” Yamato says, patting Taichi sharply on the cheek to get his attention. “What’s going on with you? Are you ok?”

Taichi looks at him. “Did you have fun?” he asks.

“What?”

“Come on. I saw you leave with her.”

“Oh.”

“I bet it was good.”

Yamato shrugs. “I mean, yeah. She’s cool.”

“She’s lucky,” Taichi says. Then he laughs. “Nothing like a one-night stand to make you feel good about yourself. That’s what you like, right? Bet it takes the edge off.”

The way he says this shows that he’s bristling for an argument, and although common sense dictates that Yamato should be the bigger man and step back from the antagonism, that’s never how it goes with the two of them. So, instead of saying “Yes, Tai. Of course, Tai. Maybe you should just lie down now,” Yamato can’t help meeting the snippy tone with one of his own.

“Yeah. You know, you should try it some time,” he says, still not entirely sure what all this is about, but not about to lose the argument simply because he doesn’t know what they’re arguing about.

“Never works out,” Taichi says, with the satisfaction of delivering a sucker punch. “Because I can’t help imagining what it would be like with you instead. So it just seems to make this whole shitty situation worse, really.”

That takes a second to sink in. 

They haven’t spoken directly about Taichi’s feelings for him since that very first first day, when Taichi came out to him. Obviously, Yamato has been able to sense that those feelings are still there, but somehow not talking about them has made it feel like they aren’t something he truly needs to worry about. 

This is the first indication that Taichi’s experience of the past few weeks hasn’t been quite the same.

“What do you expect me to say to that?” Yamato asks, feeling flustered and awkward.

“I expect nothing.”

“You expect a lot. Actually. You know the shit I have to put up with at school.”

Without warning, Taichi snaps out of his drunken stupor. He grabs Yamato by the wrist, hard and sudden, his hold a promise of violence, like they’re just about to throw down. This is how their worst fights always happen: they blow up out of nowhere. 

“I know this could work. You’re the one who won’t fucking give it a chance,” he says, angrily.

When Yamato makes to pull his wrist away, Taichi just tightens his hold. So Yamato retaliates with a grip of his own, digging the fingertips of his free hand spitefully into Taichi’s forearm, locking them together, arm over arm

“This isn’t cool, Tai. You’re way too drunk,” he says, glaring as sternly as he can. And when Taichi scoffs at that, he adds, “I’m not going to do anything with you just because you put pressure on me to.”

Taichi looks insulted. “I’m not pressuring you!” 

“You are.”

“You’re reading way too much into this.”

“Am I?”

They stare at each other, Yamato tensing for it to come to blows. It’s been a long time since they’ve fought physically. These days they might not be such an even match. They’re still mostly the same size but Taichi is definitely stronger, faster. He’s a real athlete now. And Yamato isn’t sure whether the fact that he’s liquored up will make it easier or harder to take him.

But before it comes to that, Taichi lets out a long sigh, the tension in his body seeping out along with it. His grip on Yamato’s wrist eases and Yamato feels the blood flow back into his hand with a tingle.

“I need to go to sleep,” he mutters, docile again.

“Fucking right,” Yamato says.

He releases his hold on Taichi’s arm and watches as his friend lies down slowly, still fully clothed, on top of the covers. 

There’s a spare blanket at the end of the bed, and once Yamato’s sure that Taichi’s staying down, he shakes it out and tosses it over him. 

Taichi doesn’t even seem to notice. “Sleep here with me?” he asks, before he closes his eyes.

“Not a chance.”

“You suck,” Taichi says. And then he is asleep.

When Yamato turns around, Sora is standing by the doorway, holding a glass of water. The door is still open behind her, letting in the hum of cicadas and a glimpse of starry sky.

“How much of that did you hear?” he asks, heading over to take the water from her.

“Most of it,” Sora says. “Do you need to talk?”

“Not much to say.”

“I think there’s a lot to say,” she says, studying him with concern. “But we can talk when you’re ready.”

*

That night, Yamato lies awake, staring at the ceiling, all too aware of Taichi snoring in the next bunk over.

They have never really spelled out how they both feel, that’s the thing. Sure, Taichi’s made it clear where he stands, but it’s just been left implicit that Yamato doesn’t feel the same. And that isn’t strictly true.

The fact is that Yamato gets crushes on boys, the same as he gets crushes on girls. He’s known that for years, he’s just never talked to anyone about it before. He’s even kissed boys, a couple of times. Once, something more than just kissing. 

But none of that means he has actual feelings for Taichi.

What is he supposed to say to him? ‘Hey, I like boys too, at least some of the time, though maybe not forever, and anyway I’m not totally sure you’re my type, not in that way, sorry about that’?

He knows exactly how Taichi would take that mixed message: as a challenge he can strive to beat. 

And say he did let something happen with Tai. What then? 

Nothing they do now is ever going to be casual. Their relationship is already too close, too full of messy layers. It would mean binding themselves up in something that neither of them can get out of again, not without at least one of them getting totally eviscerated.

And who wants that? The last thing Yamato needs is to wind up like his father, terminally alone because he fell in love too hard and too young and was never able to fully recover when it didn’t work out.

Bottom line: he isn’t ready. Not for a relationship like that. 

So, that means keeping his poker face on, keeping Taichi at bay and, most importantly, not letting himself get lured into looking too closely at what he might really feel.

That works well enough. For a while. Until it just doesn’t.

_April_

At the sound of the front door clicking closed, Yamato flops backwards onto the floor, letting go of the last shred of tension. 

Koushiro is his friend, but it’s still a relief that he’s gone. From the second he suggested that the three of them all hang out this afternoon, Yamato’s been kind of on edge. There’s something about Koushiro that has started to bother him lately – although he can’t quite put his finger on exactly what that is. 

On the television screen, the credits at the end of _Princess Mononoke_ are still rolling, though the music is drowned out by the chipper voice of a television announcer, talking about the rest of the night’s line up. 

Yamato lies there, inhaling the grassy scent of the tatami as Taichi slowly pads back in from the porch. He stops beside Yamato’s head and stands there in his socks, looking down at him.

“So,” he says.

“So,” Yamato echoes. 

They stare at each other, until Yamato begins to get a creeping feeling of vulnerability, sprawled out on the floor while Taichi stands over him like that. He places his hands against the mat to push himself up into a sitting positon. At the same time, like he’s having the exact same thoughts, Taichi drops down into an easy crouch. 

Status quo restored, they look at one another again. 

“So,” Taichi says again. “Will your dad be back tonight?”

“I doubt it,” Yamato says. And then: “Do you want a beer?”

They turn off the TV and go to raid the kitchen. For once, there’s no beer, but there’s a bottle of sake and packets of mochi in a box with a ribbon on it – some corporate gift that Yamato’s dad brought home the week before.

“Won’t he care? Looks expensive.” Taichi says, watching as Yamato twists open the sake, the seal around the cap breaking with a satisfying crack.

“Please, he won’t even remember he had it.”

Yamato gets out coffee mugs because he’s not about to go rummaging through the backs of the cupboards to find proper sake cups and pours a generous measure into each.

Taichi’s already chewing on the mochi. “Definitely expensive,” he says appreciatively, around his mouthful. “Try this.”

He offers one of the pillowy white sweets to Yamato, who opens his mouth to take it straight from Taichi’s fingers with his teeth. His hands are already full, with the mugs, the bottle, and the rest of his dad’s cigarettes.

“Where are you going?” Taichi asks, as Yamato heads out of the kitchen, laden with all the swag he’s gathered.

“Balcony,” Yamato tries to say, through the mochi gripped between his teeth. 

Taichi gets the message, because he follows and gets the door, holding it open until Yamato has stepped through, and then sliding it closed behind them.

It’s not much of an outdoor space, but it’s bigger than you’d find on most apartments in this city. There’s space for a couple of deckchairs and a tiny table.

Yamato manages to safely deposit their mugs and the bottle and then lowers himself into one of the chairs. He often comes to sit out here when his dad isn’t around, which is most evenings. He’ll bring his guitar out and tinker around on it, looking out at the windows of the apartments across the way, until it gets too dark and too cold for the situation to feel anything but lonely.

But he’s not on his own this evening. The second chair creaks as Taichi sits down with a groan, stretching his legs out in front of him and folding his arms behind his head like he’s at the fucking beach, rather than a chilly balcony on the twenty-second floor of a high-rise.

“T, G, I, F,” Taichi says, grinning, and then reaches out a hand for one of the coffee mugs, which Yamato passes to him. “Kampai, ne?”

Yamato touches his mug to Taichi’s. “So, ne,” he says, and then takes a sip, rolling the sweet-sour burn of the liquor over his tongue, chasing away the taste of red bean paste from the mochi.

Beside him, Taichi hisses a sharp inhale in through his teeth.

“I don’t get the fuss about this stuff,” he says. “Tell your dad to buy more beer.”

“I kind of like it,” Yamato says. He drinks beer because everybody else does, but honestly, spirits are more his style. They go down easy. They don’t make you bloat. And they taste clean.

“You would.”

“Why would I?”

“I don’t know,” Taichi says, but he’s smiling, teasing just for the sake of it.

Yamato finds himself smiling too, and starts to grope for the cigarettes, which have slid down between his thigh and the canvas seat of his chair. 

There’s a light on the balcony, but it’s dim. Everything feels shadowy and safe. Yamato hears the clunk of Taichi setting his mug down against the concrete and then the rustle of the mochi packet, the sucking sound of teeth chewing.

He gets a cigarette between his lips and strikes his thumb against the lighter until the flame appears, mug of sake gripped between his knees.

“You want more?” Taichi says, through the gloom, offering mochi, and Yamato shakes his head. He exhales the first calming breath of nicotine out through pursed lips, directing the smoke up and away from his friend.

Silence falls. Taichi stops chewing. 

Up and down the tower blocks opposite, lights blink on and blink off, as people come and go, moving through apartments. In the distance, there are the usual city sounds. Motorbike engines, a siren, the rhythm of the trains. They are familiar, comforting noises, but Yamato feels insulated from it all here, in the little bubble of the balcony. 

Even with whatever has been going on between them lately, if he’s honest with himself, this is still his favourite place to be. By Taichi’s side. 

The problems come when other people are around. Strip the rest away and things mellow between them. That’s how it’s always been.

The perfect example: half an hour later, they have abandoned the deckchairs completely and are sitting together on the floor, to better see each other in the growing darkness. The mugs and half-empty bottle of sake are on the little table between them. Yamato is on his second cigarette and has a thick woolen throw from his bedroom wrapped around his shoulders, while Taichi’s refusing to acknowledge how cold it is and pretending to be too macho to accept a blanket. He’s also grinning brightly, despite how agitated he sounds talking about some dumb soccer game from weeks ago. He always sounds like that when he’s talking about soccer.

“The fact is,” he says, decided, “It should never have been a red card.”

Yamato pulls a ‘you sure about that?’ face. Raise of one eyebrow, sceptical stare.

“What?” Taichi challenges.

“I mean, I’m no expert, but it looked a fucking lot like you just kicked his feet right out from under him,” Yamato says.

Predictably, Taichi explodes.

“But that’s my entire point! He was offside. He was _already_ offside. He was offside for half of that game! So how can it be a red card for me when he’s already committing a foul? It’s a foul on top of another foul. Where’s our goddamn free kick for that shit, already?”

Yamato can’t help smirking at the way that Taichi is waving his hands around, as wound up as if the incident were happening again right in front of his eyes.

“I don’t know,” he says, taking the time to pause for a drag on his cigarette. “That all sounds pretty convenient to me.”

“Are you calling me a dirty player?"

“I am, yeah. You can be dirty, for sure.”

“That is complete–” Taichi begins.

“When it suits you,” Yamato continues, cutting him off. “When it gets in the way of winning. That’s why you’re a winner.”

“I do usually win,” Taichi concedes, reaching for his sake. “Through merit, though.”

“Sure,” says Yamato. “You have to be dirty sometimes, anyway. Otherwise you’re just a pushover.”

“I guess that’s true.”

“I like that you can be dirty,” Yamato says, and then realises a split-second too late how that sounds.

“I like how you sound saying that,” Taichi says, without missing a beat.

He’s smiling, to show he knows that they’re not being serious. But there is something else there, some other layer of meaning that has suddenly draped itself over them, and Yamato realises that, oh yes, they are being serious.

He finds himself at a loss of what to say next, can feel heat in his cheeks and hear the pounding of blood in his ears. 

They definitely shouldn’t have gotten through as much sake as they have in such a short space of time. 

Taichi is staring at him, the shadows of the evening making his face beautiful. And like he can tell that Yamato is on the cusp of something, he sets his mug down and then edges closer, extending his arm slowly across the table, reaching for the lit cigarette.

Yamato lets him take it from his fingers.

“Let me try this thing,” Taichi says, lifting it to his mouth, putting his lips, teeth, tongue exactly where Yamato’s had been just a moment ago. He’s inexperienced, but takes it well. Cheeks hollowing around the inhale, those soft, dark eyes sliding closed as he tries not to instantly choke on the smoke invading his lungs. It takes willpower. 

There’s something so hot about seeing him do it, that Yamato suddenly thinks, _Fuck it, let’s try_. 

Jolted out of the moment of indecision, he shrugs the throw away from his shoulders. Because if they’re trying this – well. This is an area where Yamato is a winner. 

He waits for Taichi to exhale and then takes the cigarette back from him. 

“Give me that,” he says, as he grinds it out against the balcony floor. “I’m not going to watch you poison yourself.”

“Oh, but it’s okay for you to make me watch you do that on a daily basis?”

Yamato manoeuvres himself around the table, closing the remaining space between them, enjoying the way his new proximity makes Taichi blink in surprise. He drops his gaze to Taichi’s lips, letting the look linger there as he says, “There’s something else I want to try.”

Taichi has gone very still. “Really,” he says, but it isn’t a question. His tone is flat. Agreement.

There’s so much power in being able to let people know that you want them, make them want you too, just with a touch. By changing your tone. With the look in your eyes. Yamato knows how to do all of that. It’s simple. And it doesn’t even have to mean anything. Usually, for him, it doesn’t.

Right now, it’s the best tool he has for taking control of a situation, where he feels very much out of control. He knows he can turn it on and instantly get the upper hand. 

It’s not often that he has the upper hand over Taichi.

It doesn’t feel like a mistake as he leans in and runs his hand slowly down Taichi’s arm, from shoulder to elbow, cupping the swell of Taichi’s bicep in his palm. Not as he feels Taichi’s fingers settle tentatively at his hip. Not even as he hears the little hitch in Taichi’s breathing as their lips first brush.

It’s not fireworks at first. Just a kiss, like any kiss. Taichi tastes of sake and Yamato’s cigarettes and he smells like himself, a great smell. The best smell. There’s something lazy, almost companionable in it, like this is something they do all the time. A little kiss between friends.

But then, just when Yamato’s thinking that he can pull away and everything will still be normal – _see, that wasn’t so bad_ – Taichi finally finds his feet. His fingers tighten on Yamato’s hip. He parts his lips, presses them closer. And the kiss is not just a kiss anymore. It’s very clearly the start of something more.

Yamato is pretty far from a virgin. The steps are all familiar. The hand tangled in his hair, the fingertips edging beneath the hem of his shirt, the click of teeth against teeth because they’re making out properly now and there’s no room to be elegant. 

He’s turned on by it. He can feel the pressure of his boner, hard against too-tight jeans. That part’s nothing to freak out about. Yamato’s at home with sex. But that’s usually all it is: sex that you can put your shoes on and leave afterwards without a thought. 

This is not that. This is Taichi. 

And even as Yamato is already starting to recline back on his elbows onto the cold concrete; even as he’s shoving the table with it’s rattling mugs to one side with his foot, to make room; even as he’s pulling Taichi down so that he looms over him in the dark, one single, clear-voiced thought makes its way to him through it all: what will you say to him when it’s over and he wants so much more from you than you’re ready to give?

The thought is like a bucket of ice water, thrown over him. Yamato freezes. What is he doing? They are about to open something up, right now, that they won’t be able to shut down again. He can feel how much Taichi wants this. One more step and the world as they know it will end.

“Are you okay?”

Yamato looks at Taichi, who is already staring at him in concern, because of course he’s fucking concerned about Yamato right now. He has to be so chivalrous, all the fucking time. 

“No,” Yamato says, pushing him gently away and sitting up straight, trying to get his breathing under control. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Taichi says instantly, still with the concern, even though he is quite clearly the one who’s about to get hurt.

Yamato shakes his head. “That was a stupid idea. I shouldn’t have done that,” he says.

They look at each other. Yamato can see Taichi processing whatever the fuck has just happened. Then he seems to come to some conclusion. He squeezes his eyes shut, touching the bridge of his nose with his fingers.

“You don’t need to try to be something you’re not for me, Yamato. You get that, right?”

“That’s not what I…” Yamato starts to say, but then stops. Can’t think how to continue.

“Hey,” Taichi says, then, opening his eyes to look at Yamato intently. “You like girls. That’s ok.”

“I do like girls,” Yamato agrees, because it seems the simplest way out, only a lie by omission.

Taichi lets out a long breath, and then turns away to look back out towards the city. “Fuck,” he says.

The feeling of control has completely evaporated. The balcony feels cold again. Yamato has no idea what he should say. Half of him wants to just get back to it, because probably letting the sex happen would be a hell of a lot easier than whatever conversation they’re about to have now.

When Taichi stands up a moment later, Yamato follows, getting to his feet too. They stand at the railings together, side by side, looking at the buildings, so they don’t have to look at each other. 

The wind’s picked up. Yamato wants to reach down for the blanket, pull it back around himself, but something tells him he should just stay put. The cold can be penance.

“I have this stupid idea that I’m just waiting for you to catch up to me here,” Taichi says. “Like it might just be a matter of time. And that’s bullshit, right?”

“I’m sorry,” Yamato says again, and then braces himself to get the lie out. “If I liked boys…”

“Don’t finish that sentence, please.” 

Across in the other apartment block, three lights blink out, all in one go. Then, in a startling white clatter of wings, a bird swoops past, close enough that they both step backwards in alarm. 

“Is that a seagull?” Taichi asks, moving back to the railings for a better look.

“Yeah,” Yamato says, watching as the bird wheels away.

“Don’t they sleep at night?”

“I don’t know. Maybe the city lights confuse them.”

They stare together at the empty sky. Then Taichi sighs.

“I should go home,” he says. 

Yamato walks him through the silent apartment and watches him put his shoes on at the door. Once his laces are tied, Taichi leans against the wall of the sunken porch, staring up at Yamato, who is standing a foot above him, on the raised tatami.

“Hey, listen. Don’t worry about this,” he says, putting on his best ‘I’m in charge of everything’ voice. “It isn’t your problem to deal with, ok? I don’t need you to fix it for me.”

Yamato opens his mouth to disagree with that, but then changes his mind and nods instead. He’ll let Taichi have this one.

“You want to hug it out? Or do you want me to keep my distance?” Taichi says, with an uncertain smile.

“I definitely don’t want any weird distance,” Yamato tells him.

“Well alright. That’s good to hear.”

Taichi reaches and Yamato stoops, so that they can embrace across the ledge between them. All business. Chasing normality.

“Call me, ok?” Taichi says afterwards, turning to the door, and Yamato nods.

“I will.”

The door clicks shut for the second time that night and Yamato finds himself standing there staring at it, unsure what to do next. He’s still residually horny, kind of frustrated, a little bit upset. 

He thinks about calling Sora. Or maybe messaging Chloe, who’s back home in Canada now. It must be morning there.

But after a moment of indecision, he pulls up a WhatsApp chat with Koji instead.

 _Can I come over?_ he types.

It doesn’t take long for a reply to come: _Anytime, duchess._

Yamato narrows his eyes at that sarcastic pet name. It’s almost enough to make him back out. But Koji is a good time and always legitimate no strings. That’s exactly what he needs to forget all of this. 

Keys. Jacket. Boots. Yamato walks around gathering things, turning off lights in the apartment, already thinking about the dark heat of being tangled up with Koji, under the sheets on his bed. 

It’s only when he hits the kitchen light that he sees the glow from the balcony. The light out there is still on, and there’s the mess of empty mugs and mochi packets to clear up. 

He heads over, to gather everything up, but pauses when he reaches the door. There, in the weak pool of light thrown by the single naked bulb, a seagull is sitting, perched on the edge of the tiny table. 

The bird’s beady eyes find Yamato’s through the glass. They look at one another until the gull decides that there’s no threat here. It lowers its head and returns to pecking at the last mochi left in the packet. 

Instead of trying to chase the bird away, Yamato figures he might as well just let it take what it wants. Those mochi are nothing to him. He reaches slowly to the wall, where the light switch is – but that move alone is enough to startle the bird into flight. It takes off in an instant, the last of the mochi gripped in its beak. 

Yamato is still staring at the empty space where the bird had been when his phone chimes in his pocket, reminding him that he has somewhere to be. 

The mugs and bottle still need to be put away. He takes a breath and opens the balcony door. 


End file.
